Friday, 28 February 2014

Welcome back to my third and
final creation for The Artistic Stamper. I have really enjoyed my time
here and I want to thank Jennie first of all for asking me to be here
and also for her kindness and support.

I decided
that for my final feature here at The Artistic Stamper I would do a
step-by-step...I love seeing these as it really gives a great insight
into how someone works (in my case amid lots of mess!) I don't do as
many as I would like because I get so involved in the creative process
that I forget to take pictures, but this time I tried to be very aware
of the camera as well! This is a very picture heavy post I am afraid -
so grab a cuppa!
This started out as items destined for the bin (recycled!) but I decided to put them to far better use!

after decorating these 'rubbish' items with stamps, paints and inks....(and some other craft stash items)

I turned it into this......

And here is how it was done....

First I prepared the tins and toilet roll by painting them top and bottom and inside with Nougat Fresco paint.

I then cut some card to fit around the items

I
began decorating the card by stenciling some Antique Linen Distress
paint - For this one I used the Crafters Workshop 'Art is' stencil.

I didn't cover the entire piece of card....you'll see here I dabbed randomly across the stencil

I dried the paint and then began to apply some inks....I blended some Weathered Wood, Frayed Burlap and Vintage Photo.

I then stamped some words - 'Create' and 'inspire' across the card using Weathered Wood DP and Frayed Burlap DP

Then I stamped some images using the set and stamped them with Frayed Burlap, Vintage Photo and Weathered Wood DI

These
contrast wonderfully with the vivid Potting Soil Archival ink, which is
what I used to stamp next. As you can see these all build up wonderful
layers with the paint acting as a resist but the archival ink covering
the paint....I never tire of doing this!.....

.....and
good job too - because I had two more to do! Sorry, no pictures of
those because I thought that would be a bit repetitive - I used the same
technique, same set of stamps and inks but used different stencils to
add some variety - the harlequin and damask stencil was used for the
largest tin and for the smaller one I selected Swirly Q's.

So
now the pots were completed but I felt they needed something else...so I
added some crochet ribbon in ivory and my favourite coffee coloured
strand of crochet lace.

Now
I could have finished here, but I was having so much fun. At one point I
had intended to attach the tins to mount board and cut around the base
and cover the bottom of the containers with lace to hide any rough
edges. As usual with my projects they usually evolve at some point and
when I was trying to de-clutter my art cupboard before Christmas I found
a wooden tray - I have had it for years and I think it originally had
wooden die cuts in and I had been using it as a save box for little
scraps. I suddenly thought this could be a drawer! I could have the pots
attached to a drawer...

So I got out the balsa wood and got to making a box.

While
the box was drying I decorated the tray - which for some strange reason
I had stained bright orange many years ago. I painted it with a couple
of coats of Nougat Fresco paint.

I wanted it to be decorated in some way and so got an ornate metal corner and cut two pieces off

and stuck them on to the edge of the tray with Glossy accents glue.

When dry I painted a couple of coats of the Nougat Fresco paint...

then I sanded them lightly to reveal hints of the metal underneath.

A metal drawer pull was attached to the front of the drawer.

Now to decorate the inside of the drawer. I did the same stamp and ink layering that the containers were decorated with.

Then
I began to decorate the outside of the box...I wanted to get the kind
of built up layers of cracked peeling paint that so many vintage items
have...I wanted it to look like another layer just got painted over
cracks. So I began to layer crackle glaze and paints, sanding down when
slightly damp to reveal the paint underneath.

When
it was dry and I had achieved the effect I wanted I sanded the whole
box lightly and dry brushed Chocolate Pudding Fresco paint around the
edges.

Then began the 'putting it together'!

A reel of crochet lace was added - the wooden reel was
already a gorgeous grey wood stained effect, I dry brushed it with some
Snowflake fresco paint and then stamped the words 'Create' and 'inspire'
with Picket Fence Distress paint very lightly. I didn't want it to be
bright white, I wanted a barely there image.

Some
glass vials were used to hold gold micro beads and some gold Frantage. A
few wooden cotton reels were wrapped with embroidery cotton and a
couple of pearl pins tucked into the threads.

A rusty heart, glitter heart and crochet flower from my craft stash were used to decorate the containers.

My
button collection was hunted through to find lovely beige, brown and
blue toned buttons and were placed into the smallest container.

and here it is - complete with some items from my craft equipment. A place for everything, and everything in it's place

Thank
you so much for being here to see my final creation for The Artistic
Stamper. I hope you like it! I have had a wonderful month and have
really enjoyed making these creations for you to see.

I started by stamping one of the leaves with Potting Soil archival onto some shrink plastic three times, I then cut them out and shrunk the leaves with my heat tool. I love the detail you get. Here you can see it (after I had mounted them and rubbed some treasure gold around the edges).

I created a little panel to be the vocal point of my bookmark, it measure about 1 1/4 by 3 3/4". I coloured with Aged Mahogany, Rusty Hinge and Seedless Preserves Distress Inks and gave it a few spritzes of a home made gold mica spray.

Next I created the background panel, it measures exactly 2 by 6". I coloured it with some Bundled Sage Distress Ink and a tiny bit of Walnut Stain around the edges. Then I stamped the Leaves background in Pine Needles Distress Ink.. I ran the bottom part through an embossing folder and then highlighted the raised bits with the Treasure Gold and Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I then mounted the central panel on a piece of hessian and adhered that to the background panel. This was then adhered to a piece of Kraft card.

I died some seam binding to tone in with my central panel. I used a mix of Gathered Twigs Distress Stain and Seedless Preserves Distress Ink, rubbed straight onto the seem binding and then sprayed with lots of water.

I punched a whole and set an eyelet at the top of the bookmark and added a little charm.

And that was it, - project complete.

Hope you like my bookmark, they are quick and easy to do and make great little gifts. Perhaps I have even inspired you to use some stamps on shrink plastic. It is a great way to use large stamps on small projects!

And don't forget, there are just a few days left to join in our challenge, all the detail can be found HERE

Monday, 24 February 2014

Hi all, Alison (butterfly) here, with a pair of tags for you today. It will come as no surprise to regulars that they use Katy Fox's beautiful botanical stamps... I seem to be obsessed with them! (Remember, you can click on the photos if you need a closer look.)

So I started with a couple of plain manila tags, and inked them up with Tim's wrinkle-free distress technique and some spritzing and flicking. I layered in some stencilling, rays and letters with Broken China and Vintage Photo Distress Inks.

Then I added some background stamping with the Artistic Stamper Large Random Dots. They're stamped in Picket Fence Distress Paint, and then I used a white pen to add a little dimensional shading. I also stamped the Sequin Waste in Peacock Feathers - which you can see in a later photo.

And the second tag uses the large flower from Botanical 2. On each of them, I've used a very light wash of Mermaid Fresco paint to just highlight the flower heads a little.

The adorable little Les Fleurs label is also from that second set.

It's simply stamped on card in Black Archival and then torn and inked, and positioned to complement the flower stamping.

Regulars at Words and Pictures will see that I've created some new glass pebbles for this project. Rather than sticking my glass pebbles onto book pages, as I've done previously, this time I created some musical embellishments!

I spritzed some colour onto some card (Dylusions and Perfect Pearls Mists), and then stamped the Music Background over the top in Jet Black Archival.

Then you just glue on the pebbles (the sort you use to fill vases and so on) using gel medium - I use gloss, but I think any would do - wait until dry and then cut around the pebbles. I do love how they catch the light!

I've also been having another little play with the beeswax (loved my first go on some journalling pages also using Artistic Stamper stamps and stencils). I painted melted beeswax onto some book pages, and tore and inked them.

You get a lovely translucence from the beeswax, and I really like the look of ancient parchment that it gives the paper.

As you can see, I also added some Idea-ology cogs and gears - somehow the composition just needed them - and then I simply couldn't resist the urge to mount the tags onto corrugated cardboard (another obsession).

This time it's had a rough coat of a couple of paint colours that complemented the tags, and then a good bit of inking with Gathered Twigs around the roughened edges. (And here's that Sequin Waste stamping - such a cool background texture stamp!)

A little bit of crinkle ribbon, dyed with Distress Stains and Paints - the paints give it that lovely opaque look - and tied with paper string to top the whole thing off.

You can probably tell from these tags that I'm longing for Spring.

Again, I caught one of those odd pockets of sunshine to take some of these photos, but I hope you are all keeping safe and dry in these storms in the UK, and not too cold in the US, and generally happy, safe and sound wherever you are in the world.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and if you've been using Distress products then come and play along in this month's challenge here at The Artistic Stamper where that's all you need to do: Use Distress. Hope to see you there!